A mama shares with you her tips for stripping your diapers using only hot water.
What’s up with some of the smells
that seem to linger on your cloth diapers? Well, if the diaper begins
to smell the minute it comes wet chances are pretty good that you
might be dealing with detergent build up. Detergent build up can also
cause repelling issues, which is what happens when you notice leaking
from a proper fitting diaper.
To cure a detergent build up you should
run a hot water only (meaning no detergent) cycle with your
cloth diapers, inserts and wipes (if you use cloth wipes). Hot, hot
and more hotness. To do this, while it isn’t completely necessary,
you can move the temperature of your water heater up a notch a few
hours beforehand. Another thing you can do if you have new front
loading machine, is a sanitary cycle. Do not wash your diapers in
the dishwasher; if one were to fall in the bottom of the machine it
might cause a fire. Really, why even chance it?
Curious about this method of stripping
and noticing that some of my inserts were getting kind of smelly, I
decided to test it out. First, I thought about boiling some water,
bringing it down (yes, my laundry room is in my basement) and adding
it to the machine after it had cooled some. Then I realized that the
likelihood of my clumsy self making it down the stairs, walking
through our toy-laden recreation room and opening the kid-proof lock
on our laundry room door was slim to none. I went the water heater
route.
When the machine is agitating check to
see if there are any soap suds; if there are scoop them up and take
them out of the washing machine. The suds are the detergent build up
in your diapers. I have to admit I was really excited to see how much
detergent was built up in my diapers and inserts. Well, apparently
Eco Sprout (the only detergent I use on my cloth diapers) really does
do a good job (although I don’t know why I was surprised because I
love and rave about Eco Sprout all the time) because I had no suds.
If I had any suds, after the cycle had finished I would’ve run
another one again and removed any existing suds during agitating.
You’ll continue this until the water runs clear (like my picture).
Then you’re done!
*It is also recommended that you check each manufacturers warranties before going this route. Water temperature should never exceed 150 degrees and some mfg's recommend not exceeding 130 degrees.
Elizabeth (aka Bert) is a stay-at-home-mom and contributing writer for She Thinks Media. She lives in the Twin Cities with her husband, Ben, her son Buggie, and daughter Lady Bug. When she's not trying to convince Buggie to expand his interests beyond Thomas the Train or put his pants back on she's writing about her experiences as a mom on her blog, First Time Mom (FTM). After all, Bert maintains there's a first time for everything, even if you have more than one child!